Well that's the whole point, in national UK terms the LibDems are far more important than the SNP. The LibDems received 3.7 million votes, which is why they get more airtime than the SNP who didn't get anywhere near that level of support.
Obviously you want to milk the first past the post electoral system for all it's worth but it doesn't justify treating the SNP with the same level of importance as the LibDems, let alone more important, as you wish to claim.
Its just classic how the third largest party is ignored and gets a tiny fraction of the air time / media attention of smaller parties such as the lib dems or reform.
It is because they are only available to 7% of the UK population so pretty much irrelevant to anyone outside of that Scottish 7%. The same as why we don't find Plaid Cymru relevant when talking about UK government.
They have less chance of being the UK government (as it is technically impossible) than the Green Party which is saying something...
Surely a party that I cannot vote for is pointless wasting too much time thinking about, they only impact is how they affect the parties I can vote for.
What parochial attitudes you show.
Oh the ironing ! 😂
You know full well that the SNP unlike the LibDems has no support outside Scotland, and that despite your consent reference to first past the post that the LibDems have three times more support throughout the UK than the SNP.
And yet you want them to both receive the same level of media coverage. Instead of repeating the same spin over and over again perhaps you should explain why you believe that the average person living in England and Wales should be particularly interested in Scottish politics?
Btw there are more Labour MPs in London than there are SNP MPs in Scotland, do you think that the rest of the UK should be particularly interested in the views of Labour MPs from London?
Why would I care about an insular little party like the snp when I can't vote for them?
If we had a better form of voting then we would care even less
Fek me if you think Scottish politics is under reported at a UK level, try finding out about Wales. Actually the same probably goes for any region. Unless a total shitstorm is going on, it doesn't get on the radar.
i'm no more interested in Scottish politics than I am the politics of Denmark or Norway.
And the West Lothian question is still a thing so maybe SNP supporters should stop moaning? 🤷🏻♂️
This attitude you show here is one of the drivers for independence
Is this the politcal equivalent of taking your cricket set home if you don't get what you want? Sounds a bit like the brexiteers did before 2016.
i’m no more interested in Scottish politics than I am the politics of Denmark or Norway.
So you don't care what's happening in the UK - interesting...
So you don’t care what’s happening in the UK
Most of the important stuff is decided in Westminster. I'm all for devolving as much as possible to regional and local govt, but that should be within a greater federated state. The SNP though just have their cake and eat it much like Johnson et al wanted for brexit so no I'm not really interested in that.
Utterly insane that children’s care is for profit
You occasional reminder that most NHS High Street services - Dentists, Pharmacists, GPs, Care Homes, Opticians, Audiologists are all run by for-profit organisations.
I’m all for devolving as much as possible to regional and local govt, but that should be within a greater federated state.
Except you said you don't care about Scottish politics, so you have no interest in "devolving as much as possible" as you still want the centre to have full control.
This attitude you show here is one of the drivers for independence
And yet the SNP care so much about independence their new leader has just scrapped the cabinet post specifically for it.
so you have no interest in “devolving as much as possible” as you still want the centre to have full control.
Devolving powers != Independence
TBH if Scotland wants to be independent that's fine by me, I just think it will be a really stupid thing to do for all the reasons we thought leaving the EU was a bad idea.
@nickc difference is, i knew about those. I don’t like that either
Oh sure, I get that, I'm not making the case that for-profit is the best (or only) way these things should be organised, just that they are. I generally think most folks don't really give it much thought, and are (like you) surprised when they discover some-one's making money from it.
The difference between children’s care and those high street NHS services (ok, GPs not so much) is whether the service user gets to choose the service provider.
That difference is enough to justify the “utterly insane”. The children are the commodity in this business model.
What's utterly insane is government funded bodies agreeing to pay those prices, like the NHS paying £2k to cover a shift with an agency nurse (and the agency taking half it).
Looked-after children services are often hamstrung by regulation and local authorities though. Partly, charitable providers are being forced out the sector becasue of the onerous requirements of both local authority guidelines and organisations like the CQC and Care Commissioners in Scotland and Wales who are imposing stricter and stricter [and more and more costly] controls that organisations (apart from those who're are very well funded) find it increasingly more difficult to meet and manage. The numbers of these children is increasing beyond local authorities capacity and capability to look after. The sector is a victim of previous scandals and austerity. The providers that do provide these services are few and far between, and while I'm not going to defend profit gouging, running these services [properly to the standards we want and expect] ain't cheap, neither.
On the one hand you can't expect charities to be able to either pay for the sorts of staff that can do these things, but on the other, relax the guidelines and potentially put [the most very vulnerable] people in society in harms way.
Unless govts regulate this sector and manage the issues that increase the need for them better, then this is the result.
and while I’m not going to defend profit gouging, running these services [properly to the standards we want and expect] ain’t cheap, neither.
This can be very true. the child may need constant supervision in a solo setting ( worst case scenario). that means two staff on duty 24 hours a day ( so one can have breaks / go for a pee) that means more than 8 full time staff just for that one child plus holiday / sickness cover which is effectively another staff member. Paid at minimum wage thats getting close to £250 000 pa in wages and other employment costs alone
Gove really is a shit, his party is largely responsible for the poisoning of British politics yet as usual it is everyone else's fault
Gove really is a shit, his party is largely responsible for the poisoning of British politics yet as usual it is everyone else’s fault
I refer to my comment yesterday regarding lack of self awareness....
Come on, give them a break - they have only been at if for 14 years. Shocking to think that younger people have not known anything else.
Gove reallly is a smarmy, self-serving little shit. Man who's party has constantly stoked division for its own ends now complaining about rising division.
This lot have pandered to racists, weaponised nasty petty nationalism and constantly stoked the right wing flames by 'othering' minority groups. Saner heads told them repeatedly that you can't just flirt with the far right when it suits you. Once you've let that particular genie out of the bottle, you can't just pop it back in again once its served its purpose.
And so its turned out. The Tory party has now become some mutant hybrid of UKIP and the BNP. All moderate voices have been purged or silenced and the people setting the mood are lunatics like Braverman and Badanoch. Whats still vile, though we've now become used to it, is that its these children of immigrants (including Sunak) now showing the very hardest of hearts and fuelling undisguised scapegoating and hatred towards 'The Other'
Coming back nicely to the children's services point earlier, another aspect of the nasty racist culture war blows up in their faces - a fact that anyone connected to child protection could have told you since forever.
BBC News - Child abusers often family and other kids – police
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czkk41jxpx0o
This infected blood victim compensation scheme is going to cost (tens of) billions. I wonder how they're going to pay for it?
Looked-after children services are often hamstrung by regulation and local authorities though. Partly, charitable providers are being forced out the sector becasue of the onerous requirements of both local authority guidelines and organisations like the CQC and Care Commissioners in Scotland and Wales who are imposing stricter and stricter [and more and more costly] controls that organisations (apart from those who’re are very well funded) find it increasingly more difficult to meet and manage.
Let's not forget that a lot of issues like that are down to lack of money, and that's the fault of central government.
If the public sector paid really well, people would be fighting each other to get jobs in it and we'd end up with a much more effective organisation.
Let’s not forget that a lot of issues like that are down to lack of money, and that’s the fault of central government.
Absolutely - grant reductions of 30% to 22 (including a bit of Covid spending uptick.) District Councils are currency users and Central Government is a currency issuer. (So DCs have to raise money - like States in the US.)
Damage done for absolutely political reasons rather than real financial constraints at the Central Government side of things.
they won’t they’ll kick the can down the road again then it’s someone else’s problem.
Tax cuts? & then make it a Labour problem
Think you've both missed the point I'm making. 😏
Sunak has already said they'll pay whatever it costs and all the victims and their families will be able to claim. That could be 30,000 - 100,000 people all getting substantial amounts of 6 to 7 figures. Add that to the post office compensation scheme the govt is going to be paying tens of billions in compensation. Labour are supporting the payments so I ask again, where's the money coming from?
Labour are supporting the payments so I ask again, where’s the money coming from?
Never you mind, we will find it. You just remember the country cannot afford for people to have better services.
You would think it would be an easy sell wouldn't you - vote for me and the services will all be better funded but don't worry about where the money is coming from as you wouldn't understand it anyway and you shouldn't concern yourself with it.
And in more good news for the government
BBC News - Move to extend police protest powers ruled unlawful
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-69043611
So this crack pot government once again gets handed it's arse because it was too lazy and incompetant to follow the tried and tested rules for creating laws.
Yes and no.
It was passed last year and I suspect will have suppressed peoples willingness to protest since then.
So whilst obviously passing a proper law would be more sensible given the difficulty of that and how little the tories care about spending taxpayers money having this in place for a year but then having to cough up compensation is the next best thing for them.
As ever, a conflict with the courts is exactly what they want.
Plenty of people will still fall for it, millions will still vote tory 🤷
LeFtY lAwYeRs!on!E
I see the ‘Party of Lawnorder’ has told the police to stop arresting people 😂
Never you mind, we will find it. You just remember the country cannot afford for people to have better services
Of course we will - it's an act of Parliament just only when it suits.
Water companies and dismal regulation doing their thing to cement the absolute failure of privatisation. I wonder what pragmatism would look like here... hmm.
Once again the government can pay or the public can pay. But whilst muppets support the tax payer myth we will keep passing the buck to the consumer to deal with. Thames is goner.
Inflation down as expected - who knew it would eventually come down, but expect Fishi to go on a his scripted soap box about the success of his team.
Scary LOL at the utter economic failure of our system to serve its people, and people not really given an electoral choice to remove this economic mess.
https://twitter.com/RichardJMurphy/status/1792807000067252638?t=A9N1TSPFAtCUL5iTsDv_Qw&s=19
I see the ‘Party of Lawnorder’ has told the police to stop arresting people 😂
I thought they already were at that point.
No, we were previously at the point where they’d told the courts not to convict people, now they’ve decided to cut the supply off at source by stopping the initial arrest in the first place
In a way it’s genius! I look forward to them announcing that there is now no crime in the UK as nobody has been arrested for or convicted of any crimes at all
What's next... telling ambulances not to take people to hospital because they're f...
..oh.
